I Fragged My Carpet Last Night

[Gary Majchrzak]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8084119#post8084119 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Dan
Seems that you would have felt nematocysts if the water was full of them. I wonder if there may have been a drastic pH change. The inside of an anemone is just a big digestive cavity. That usually means low pH. Big anemone, 50 gallon tank, maybe dumped a bunch of acidic water that overwhelmed the buffering capacity. Next brave soul should check the pH of all that water that spills out after the slice. Other than that, all that slime just may have been too much tox all at once. A good cleansing system will go a long way in the future.
Dan

FWIW I don't know if one would necessarily feel anemone nematocysts shed into a water column. (I've never felt nematocysts unless I come in direct contact with an anemone.) It probably depends on the sensitivity of the aquarist, the species of anemone and aquarium volume/filtration turnover rate. A good filtration system could rapidly remove shed nematocyts while the aquarist that just placed a freshly sliced anemone in the display aquarium wonders why his/her fishes are suddenly breathing heavily and hiding in the rockwork (acting very similar to a fish that inadvertently got stung by an anemone). I would think that a big quick change in pH would affect inverts more so than fishes. Whatever the stuff a freshly cut anemone produces is lethal to certain fishes and not invertebrates (IME).

I would add another caution to what Anthony posted. No one should rush to frag any newly imported anemone. If you can't keep an anemone alive for an extended length of time it's unlikely you'll have success fragging a big host anemone. These creatures are most definitely more sensitive than corallimorphs and octocorals. It would be great to see CP anemones supply demand for the aquarium trade, but I'd hate to see a thread like this cause a rash of new anemone hackers move in and kill even more anemones.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8085540#post8085540 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 55semireef
So how come many people end up failing keeping carpets under pcs (excluding haddonis)?

what species of "carpet anemone"? (no macro yet, Scott )
It all depends on the type of carpet anemone species you're referring to because they all have different husbandry requirements.
I know of two people that have had success with Merten's carpet anemone under VHO only lighting in deep aquariums.
A Haddon's anemone in the same system might not last but a couple of months. A gigantea in such a situation might not even survive for a few days.
traveller7 is right: Most folks are failing to keep carpets under any kind of lighting.

 

[delphinus]

I feel your pain. I know it's hard to lose your fish, it's happened to me now a few times. And even when I thought I took adequate precautions (when I was moving an anemone), it turned out that I wasn't. Unfortunately this hobby can be risky business at times. All I can offer is that hindsight is 20/20, everytime we try something, we learn something new and hopefully know something better for the next time(s).

But I do commend you for trying this, and sharing your learnings. At least from the educational aspect something good will come out of this.

The more documented cases, the better off our collective body of knowledge will be.

 

[latinbeachboy10]

Phil,
I have been following this post for a while now and again, thank you for sharing your knowlege with us.

I have had my rose anemone (now 6") and my seabe anemone (12"+) for a year now and they are doing very well in my tank. A few months ago I heard someone at the LFS I worked at talking about propogating roses and he brought 3 in that used to be one that he propogated.

Since then I have be entertaining the idea of splitting my nems.
With your information and that of a few other people I can now make a more educated decision on the procedure.

I will post on here with my findings if I decide to do this in the following months.

Thanks again!
~Christian~

 

[dantodd]

6" seems pretty small for fragging IMO.

 

[phender]

Well, here are the 96 hour pictures as promised. The feet are still in a horseshoe shape. Although they both usually hold themselves in a circle, the separation is still there. The cut part of the column still has a lot of stuff I would rather not see exposed, but there isn't any decomposition or infection that I can tell.

Here is the in- tank half. The tentacles are still under inflated, but I can understand that. I've added a close-up of the mouth. The over exposed white (actually yellow) cresent is the edge of what use to be the mouth. The little brown bag-like structure are the tissues that billow out of the mouth at feeding time (I'm assuming part of the stomach). The thing that looks like a rock under the cresent is......a rock.

Here is the in-basket half. I think I will leave it in the basket for a while. Its tentacles are a little better inflated and the extra light doesn't seem to be hurting it. Sorry about the ripple distortion.

I have noticed on occasion that food held in the tentacles for a while seems to get mushy, like perhaps the toxins in the nematocysts are starting the digestion process before the food gets to the mouth. Anybody know whether or not the tentacles are able to absorb food molecules before the main job is done by the stomach?

 

[phender]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8087046#post8087046 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by latinbeachboy10
...I have had my rose anemone (now 6") and my seabe anemone (12"+) for a year now and they are doing very well in my tank. A few months ago I heard someone at the LFS I worked at talking about propogating roses and he brought 3 in that used to be one that he propogated.

Since then I have be entertaining the idea of splitting my nems.
With your information and that of a few other people I can now make a more educated decision on the procedure....
~Christian~

If the measurements are from tentacle to tentacle, they might be a little small. If the measurements are just the oral disk, then I think that size would be about perfect for both.

 

[Name That Tune]

OMG :eek1: that took some pretty big Ba*ls.

 

[ricordiaking]

Hey phender, wow man that's great I hope they pull all the way for you.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Thanks for the photos! Heck, they're looking a lot better than I would have expected. Fingers are still crossed for you.

 

[Dan]

Looking good. An experiment worthy of the "Aquarist of the Year" award. Awesome, Phil.

Agree with husbandry first, fragging second. With that said, I disagree with not encouraging more people try this with a variety of anemones. Yes, we'll lose some. But the only way to move forward to the goal of CB anemones tomorrow is to experiment today. I am sure most of the CB fish, corals, and inverts that we are able to get today were dead experiments yesterday. Aquaculture didn't get where it is today without losing a lot of critters trying to discover what works. Hats off to all who have tried. Keep it up. Learn, learn, learn. And share what you learn so the next person can go to the next step.

Dan

 

[55semireef]

what species of "carpet anemone"?

Gigantea or Merten. Haddonis are more forgiving than those.

 

[phender]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8085540#post8085540 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 55semireef
So how come many people end up failing keeping carpets under pcs (excluding haddonis)?

I think what it come do to is what habitat is the species adapted to.
I have to admit that I have never see any type of carpet in the wild and gladly stand corrected if need be, but here are my thoughts.

S. gigantea is commonly found in very shallow water (we are talking tidepool shallow). Haddoni (with a few notable exceptions) and Merten's can be found in deeper water.

PC lights simply don't seem to supply the biological needs that gigantea is adapted to. You would think that feeding it a lot would make up for the lack of light, but it doesn't seem to (at least it didn't when I tried it). I don't think giganteas are ever found in very deep water. If that is true, then there must be something in that bright light that they need that we have not quite figured out.

On the otherhand, haddoni and mertensii are sometimes found in shallow water but more often in deeper water. They can live in lower light levels in nature, which allows them to live in lower light levels in our tanks. Lower light levels is a relative term. We are still talking LPS/Leather coral type intensity.

 

[55semireef]

Phender that is probably true for i havn't seen carpets in the wild either but I am talking about fish tanks. A lot of people ususally fail with Haddonis and Mertens under PCs. Its probably more than just light thats playing a factor.

 

[bluerug]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8098889#post8098889 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 55semireef
Phender that is probably true for i havn't seen carpets in the wild either but I am talking about fish tanks. A lot of people ususally fail with Haddonis and Mertens under PCs. Its probably more than just light thats playing a factor.

Really?

 

[BonsaiNut]

By the way Phil, it should probably be mentioned that S. gigantea can be grown from larval stage to full adulthood in natural sunlight with no supplemental feeding whatsoever...

 

[phender]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8099247#post8099247 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by BonsaiNut
By the way Phil, it should probably be mentioned that S. gigantea can be grown from larval stage to full adulthood in natural sunlight with no supplemental feeding whatsoever...

You are assuming that I knew that. Thank you for the info. I remember reading that there was a clam farm raising some gigantea many years ago and the Waikiki Aquarium had recieved a couple, but I didn't remember the no feeding part.

 

[Flighty]

I would wonder what they caught on their own with their stickyocityness.

 

[phender]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8098889#post8098889 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 55semireef
Phender that is probably true for i havn't seen carpets in the wild either but I am talking about fish tanks. A lot of people ususally fail with Haddonis and Mertens under PCs. Its probably more than just light thats playing a factor.

How many people do you know that have failed with Merten's carpets. IME, they may be less demanding than Haddonis.
The biggest factor why people have a difficult time keeping anemones in general is because most anemones can't recover from all the stress of capture, holding and shipping that they have to endure. Even anemones that look good for a few days or weeks may have already started a downhill turn that most hobbiests can't stop. By the time you can tell there is something wrong, it is often too late to do anything about it.

Once you have gotten though those first critical months the difference between being able to keep gigantea carpets and haddons or mertens comes down to two things IMO. Giganteas need high levels of light and tide-like water currents (lots of volume, low speed). If it doesn't have those two things(especially the light), it will gradually(several months) shrink down and die. Haddons and Mertens carpets can get by with lower levels of light(LPS/leather coral type intensity) and normal random flow.

 

[55semireef]

I have had my bluecarpet Haddoni for about 5 weeks and has been doing well. It has grown a lot since and looks a lot bluer than before from what it was. It just seems like carpets prefer stronger lighting even though they will still live under PCs (lower levels of lighting).

 

[phender]

This may not be true in your case since you got your anemone from a friend, but in many cases the rapid growth of new anemones in the first couple months is not so much growth as it is a return to its original size before it was collected.
There is no doubt that it is difficult to "over light" anemones. As with most photosynthetic reef creatures, more light is usually better, but in some cases you don't need to have tremendous growth. In many cases moderate growth is good enough. The brightly colored pigments in anemones (in this case, blue) are often used as "sunblock" to protect cells from the sun. At lower lights the blue pigments tend to fade, while they intensify at higher levels. The bluer anemones certainly look better, but it is not necessarily a measure of the anemone's health. Sort of like a tan person is no more healthy than someone without a tan.